Join Susan as she obsesses about cosmetic chemistry and other things (some possibly related to monkeys). Often strange, occasionally useful, and always worth a stop as a point of interest on your journey through the Intertron.

Confession: I've been playing with so many active ingredients over the last year in anticipation of writing a new e-book on the topic. You'll see a great many of them here, along with tons of new recipes. I just have to find time to take pictures to make them look all pretty!

Dehydrosome plump (from Formulator Sample Shop*) is Helianthus Annuus (Sunflower) Seed Oil & Lecithin & Yeast Extract. It's an oil soluble liquid we use in our products at 1% to 10%. The claims are that it can plump your lips by reducing transepidermal water loss

The lecithin is filled with phosolipids or phosphatides, and all kinds of lovely fatty acids. In our cosmetic ingredients, lecithin can come from a number of sources like soy, egg, or sunflower oil. The soy and the egg lecithin do differ a little. The soy has a fatty acid profile of 20% palmitic acid (C16), 4.3% stearic acid (C18), 11.4% linoleic acid (C18:1), 56.6% linolenic acid (C18:2), and about 7% linolenic acid (C18:3). The egg lecithin contains 30% palmitic acid (C16), 15.9% stearic acid (C18), 26.4% oleic acid (C18:1), 16.2% linoleic acid (C18:2), and no linolenic acid. It does, however, contain arachadonic acid at about 6%. Both of these contain little to no Vitamin E, but they contain B vitamins (choline, Vitamin B8), and they contain 60% to 70% phospholipids (made up of the fatty acids listed above). Most of what we find on our suppliers' shelves is the soy version of lecithin, but if you're vegan or have any restrictions on your diet, ask before buying.

Choline has been shown to increase skin hydration, so it can act as a humectant to bring water our skin. In one study, the application of lecithin to skin increased water retention by 40% and it lasted about 2.5 hours! Another ingredient in lecithin - inositol - has been shown to decrease trans-epidermal water loss in animal studies. It's also been shown to increase moisture retention in our hair. And it's an anti-oxidant - it's three great things in one!

Lecithin is considered a great moisturizer with those high levels of oleic and linoleic acids, which will moisturize and help restore a damaged skin barrier. The stearic acid is also very moisturizing!

Lecithin can act as an anti-oxidant in our products, scavenging to prevent lipolytic rancidity at 0.01% to 0.25%. It can help boost the efficacy of Vitamin E and Vitamin C as anti-oxidants (science isn't really sure why this is...)

Yeast extract is filled with B vitamins and amino acids, while the sunflower oil is a lovely, light feeling but a bit greasy emollient.

In this recipe, I've used 4.3% Dehydrosome Plump in place of some of the jojoba oil. You could use up to 10% in any lip scrub recipe you chose to make. If you don't have it, just replace the 4.3% with another oil or oil soluble ingredient you like. This recipe is the same as yesterday's lip scrub with the tiny change of the dehydrosome plump ingredient.

If you don't have berry sugar, put your sugar into a coffee grinder and blend for maybe 10 seconds to produce a fine sugar. You don't want to grind it too long as you'll end up with powdered sugar, which won't scrub that well. (Ask me how I know this!)

Into a container, weigh the jojoba oil, fractionated coconut oil, and peppermint essential oil, and mix well. Add the sugar, mix until it is like wet sand, then spoon into your container.

I've seen people using things like cinnamon or clove essential oil to plump up lips by annoying the heck out of them. I haven't tried that as I'm pretty sensitive to those kinds of things, so I really don't have an opinion of doing it that way.

I've been testing an ECOcert, oil soluble ingredient called Sepilift DPHP* (from Lotioncrafter) that I'll tell you more about next week as I finalize some of the recipes I've been working on and hear back from my testers.

Please note, clicking on a link with an * beside it takes you to another site. I am sharing these links as these were the things I used and I thought I'd do it rather than having someone ask me. These are not affiliate links, and I don't receive anything if you click on them and buy something. I'm just sharing because I'm big fans of these sites!

Welcome to the blog!

Meet our new mascot!

Welcome to the blog!

Thanks for stopping by Point of Interest! Pull up a chair, grab your favourite hot beverage, and hang out for a bit. Feel free to add your comments to posts of any age to share your thoughts! It's no fun writing this blog if I don't get to hear from you, my amazing readers!

Have a question that hasn't been asked before? Feel free to write to me at sjbarclay@telus.net and ask away! Please note, I encourage you to do the tour of the blog first and check the newbie section and FAQ first. Then maybe do a search? If you're asking for help with a recipe, I need the complete recipe in percentages and your exact process. I can't help without these, and I won't be able to do a back-and-forth with you to get the information.

As for comments, please find a relevant post and write your comment there. There's no point asking for help with your lotion bar on a post about conditioners as no one will see it but you. Please find something that relates by doing a search or looking at sections like hair care, newbie links, or extracts, for example, post your comments there. It'll make it easier for other people to help you if I can't find time, too. If you post something that is very clearly not related to the post in which you're asking for help, it will go unanswered by me.

I'm not allowing anonymous comments for the time being thanks to some particularly relentless spammers. I am also moderating any comments on posts over 2 weeks old.

There are no old posts! Write your comments anywhere and I will see them, although they will be moderated before posting due to the aforementioned spammers.

Unfortunately I'm not able to offer business consultations at this time as I'm simply too busy. Thank you so much for thinking of me when you need assistance with your formulations. (I may be able to offer this in the future.)

As a note, I am not affiliated with any suppliers or manufacturers of any craft supplies of any type. If I rave about something, it's because I love the ingredient, fabric, beads, etc. not because I've been paid to say something nice! I do get free things from time to time from manufacturers and suppliers, but I make them aware that I will be brutally honest about those ingredients on the blog!

My Patreon page

If you like what I'm offering here on the blog, check out my Patreon page where you can offer a small donation or create a monthly subscription to get even more stuff from the blog, like a monthly e-zine, Q&A, and duplication recipe. The money you donate to me - not the youth programs - will go to creating more content for this blog, creating new e-books and an e-zine, and - we hope - some video content in the future.

Follow SwiftCraftyMonkey on social media!

Join me on my Facebook page for updates, random thoughts, and links to other things I think might be interesting! Or look for me on Twitter @SwiftCraftyM or Instagram as swiftcraftymonkey

My e-books

To raise money for our youth groups, I've put together these e-books! If you want to learn more about the books or donate, click on the bolded links!Or click here for a short description of all the e-books!The new e-book is here! Formulating Facial Products! This 399 page e-book is filled with recipes for facial products, including moisturizers, sera, cleansers (oil and surfactant based), scrubs, gels, and more, as well as entries for ingredients like botanical extracts, cosmeceuticals, emulsifiers, thickeners, essential oil, and more, as well as a large appendix about our oils.

Click here to see the table of contents! If you make a $28 donation to our youth programs, we'll send you a copy of this e-book along with the preservatives, oils, butters, and surfactant charts as a thank you for your kind generosity!

Formulating & Creating Lotions! This 224 page e-book is perfect for those of you familiar with lotion making and ready to start creating your own recipes! I've included all the information I know about the HLB system, as well as my base recipes for lotions, creams, body butters, and moisturizers!

Click here to see the table of contents! If you make a $26 donation to my youth programs, I'll send you a copy of this e-book, an HLB calculator in Excel format, and the carrier oil, exotic oil, butter, and preservative comparison charts.

Lotion Making 101. This 305 page book includes everything you wanted to know about the basics of making lotions, including the chemistry of our lotions, ingredients we use, keeping your lotions safe, equipment you might need, and more recipes than I could count! For those of you who don't have the Back to Basics book, I've included all the carrier oil, exotic oil, and butter profiles.

Click here to see the table of contents. If you make a $29 donation to my youth groups, I'll send you along a copy of this e-book as a thank you. I'll also send you a copy of the carrier oil, exotic oil, butter, and preservative comparison charts!

Back to Basics: Anhydrous Products. This 122 page e-book includes over 50 recipes and explanations for making lotion bars, whipped butters, balms, oil based scrubs, bath melts, bath oils, oil based sprays, solid scrubs, and facial sera, as well as all the carrier oil, exotic oil, and butter profiles and everything I've gathered about the chemistry of our oils including fatty acids, mechanisms of rancidity, phytosterols, and polyphenols.

Click to take peek at the Table of Contents. If you make a $25 donation to the groups, I'll send you a copy by e-mail as a thank you!

Click on the links above to learn more about the books. If you already know what you want or want to make a general donation, click the button below! (I'll know which e-book you want by the amount you've donated!) Thank you so much for supporting our youth groups. You have made it possible for us to continue offering our programs and we finally got that sewing machine!

I've had to remove my cell phone number due to a number of calls from people wanting to learn how to make lotion. If you are part of the groups or want more information, please email me or call Community Services at 604 792-4267 to get connected.

Who the heck is Swift?

I'm an aspiring cosmetic scientician and DIY girl interested in pretty much any craft you can name - bookbinding, jewellery making, sewing, paper crafts, polymer clay - but my main passion is bath & body product making.
I am currently obsessed with Rock Band (bass and singing) and science books. Did you know my favourite word is "toaster" and my favourite adjective is "hirsute"?